As women’s cricket comes back to normalcy and frequency, players throughout the globe arise of periods of uncertainty and undesired breaks brought upon by the global pandemic. WBBL and Women’s T20 Challenge have been keeping people entertained from around the globe.
However, we at Female Cricket had voiced our concern about the fitness of players when they play after a break of several months. Melbourne Renegades seems to have experienced the fear. The fast bowler Maitlan Brown has, according to recent reports, has suffered a hamstring injury.
Maitlan has been a promising start for the tournament. It has to be noted that she has earned appreciation from the likes of Alyssa Healy. The Melbourne Renegades pacer suffered the injury while batting for her side against Hobart Hurricanes on Tuesday. The scans have further confirmed that her hamstring tendon has taken the hit and appears torn. While it remains unclear that when the pacer will be available to offer her services again, her injury is a big blow to the Melbourne Renegades side who already miss their prime pacer Lea Tahuhu to a side strain.
Brown was making her presence felt in the WBBL outing. Playing against Sydney Sixers, she was consistently clocking 118-120 kph. Healy, after the Sixer’s win over Renegades, said that “You can see by the way she’s running in, she’s charging in, running in fast and putting everything into each delivery”.
Healy continued that Brown has impressed her with the new ball as she faced her (Brown) in quarantine. Further, Healy has spent time with Brown on the series against New Zealand. Brown made it to the 18-player Aussie squad in Brisbane but couldn’t break into a debut. Healy further said that “I thought she was going to get the nod for the one-day series to come in and cover Pez’s role with the new ball … it didn’t fall that way but she impressed a lot of people in the nets with her ability to move the ball and run in and hit the deck. She bowls a yucky bouncer for a batter, a skiddy slidey one that you feel like it’s going to hit you in the head”.
Healy went ahead that with the arrival of talents like Brown, the boundaries of the game are extended further. While Renegades will look to get their pace department in line for the tournament, they shall also look to keep their camp alive in the tournament with wins around their belt.
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